Part II: Claw of the Under Empire

"Enjoying the breeze on it's fur Radgnaw leant over the transport safety railing as the incoming mortar fire mangled the desert around their Reviler Host. Major's ramshackle skimmer was airborne towards it's destination, boosting through the night in an uneven pattern. Part of this was evasive action to counter the Corporation anti-aircraft fire, but mostly it was because of the rather unreliable side thrusters. Engines screamed as the Vitriol carrier swooped over the defence lines, brutally shattering the first Ranger ranks with it's noxious ammunition. "Inject the stimulants!" Radgnaw bellowed. "Looks like we've got lives and stuff to steal!"

Another project with higher stakes and increased points cost! With this army we dove even more into the scratchbuilding environment and tried to think of ways to match the contents of the miniature kits into the units and rules they were trying to represent. The Mantic Warpath Veer-myn range is small but inspiring and in my opinion it was a good move to try to produce something original with a spice of some classic theme. After all, we're all used to ratmen in the fantasy battles!

The more I browsed through the Dark Eldar rules the more they began to resemble the vile Veer-myn. Eldar and rats are both agile and fast, utilizing their cunning animalistic and alien instincts. They both can be portrayed as quite fragile creatures, hence the light armour and soft toughness values. Poisoned weapons work brilliantly with a filthy rat-themed force. And the Dark Eldar even have the night-vision rule. Match!

Citizens beware! Under the protection of the dusk, Veer-myn Nightcrawlers emerge from the Death World's endless sewer network!

The basic Night Crawler kit works very well to represent Warriors. The guns are convincing Splinter rifles with their glowing power sources, heating the sinister toxins to appropriate temperatures to be blasted upon the enemy. We only did subtle conversions to these models, basically extending the necks of a few ratmen to allow different head postures. Ollie also sculpted a couple of red-lensed goggles to the models to carry on the skimmerborne theme.

Quick'n'Easy armament conversions were required to separate the special weapons from the ordinary ones. Whip is a very Dark Eldar-like tool and it works pretty well with cruel Rat-slaver as well. The electro-lasher counts as an Agonizer and it's simply a piece of wire wrapped around itself. One of the Night Crawler weapons was also extended using plasticard pipe with Orx Marauder Special weapon muzzle as the end of the barrel. Some wire was added to fill the purpose of some power cables and the crude stock to help the rat take aim with his Dark lance-substitute.

The Vitriol transport conversions were an enjoyable scratchbuilding experiment. At first we thought of just making the Venom skimmers using the ordinary Orx Raptor model with a bit taller, scenic base added. At some point I decided that I'd try making a flying version. Even though Venoms don't actually have such details, the shark-fin sail elements were included already in the original ground buggy-concept to bring more resemblance to the Dark Eldar vehicles in general.

For the prototype I combined the Orx Marauder Raptor and Forgefather Hailstorm cannon kits, both available in the Warpath Starter kit Fate of the Forgestar as well as in individual boxed sets. The basic structure is from the Raptor with the extended transport capacity and the different thruster details added from the Hailstorm cannon. Only non-Mantic components were the cardboard sail and the safety railings made out of wire. We didn't cheat with the bases either, they're both from the Corporation heavy weapon teams!

The "Blasterborn" squad uses parts from the Veer-myn plastresin kits. The special weapons are straight from the box, as the tip of the gun is very similary to the actual Dark Eldar Blaster. To give the models some elite appearance, we used the sleeveless, muscular arms and the gas masks only on the Trueborn.

Wyches are out of a Veer-myn Nightmares team box. The strange drill knives look like a special weapon of some sort and I thought they would make pretty interesting alternatives for Haywire grenades, when slammed against vehicle hulls.

The Vitriol carrier provides fire support from the altitude. The paintjobs on the ratmen as well as vehicles are tabletop standard, as we didn't want to get stuck with a certain project for too long. The overall appearance is what counts!

Watch out! Strange, biomechanical cyborg creatures swarm the streets!

The Wrack conversions utilize the Nightmare models as a base, with the tank/canister kind of thing from the models' back used as a headgear. This is to give them a dark and menacing, steampunk-themed appearance. You can just imagine the gloomy laugh and screams audible through the iron masks! These creatures are not the sanest ones around!

The slasher whips are the same conversion as used in the Warrior squad leader, these things just run with a bit cheaper batteries and hence don't ignore armour saves. The squad leader has two weapons to maul the enemies with. We also did a small liquifier gun conversion that I forgot to spesifically photograph, but it's a small flamer-looking tip on the palm of one of the steel gauntlets.

Major Radgnaw leading his mindless disciples. To make the boss bigger and more imposing than the regular rat grunts, we used an Orx Marauder body to bring more length and mass to his stature. Rat head and tail tie him in with the rest of the army. The armoured, bionic hands are from a Veer-myn Night Spawn model, which we had as leftovers from the Diver Zombie conversions.

Some fuel tanks from the Nightmare team kit were added to power the liquifier gun of his left arm. On the right arm we removed the drill weapon and added a couple of scavenged and customized Corporation rifles to count as his other special weapon (Casket of Flensing).

Merciless ratmen rank up to blast and burn through the concrete jungle of an unfortunate city.

Enough nuclear waste to power the Virulizer guns for the rest of the decade. Must be held at all costs!

Night Crawlers prepare to embark into their transport vehicle.

"Fire-fire!" The fallout-ridden wasteland also attracts the living dead.

Major Radgnaw's gonna show how it's done (and check the pockets of that nice jacket too!)

4 comments:

Despite your filthy rodent companions it appears that you were seen in your Sunday Best last week with this post. Hope you don't mind the shout out on my weekly themed top-x. Cheers and thanks for sharing.